Royal Dutch Shell and the dark arts

UPDATED 8 SEPT & 14 SEPT 2010 (NEW INFORMATION IN RED TEXT)

Threats, including death threats, have allegedly been made against conscience driven Shell whistleblowers leaking information and/or Shell internal documents to John Donovan

By John Donovan

Andy Coulson resigned as editor of the News of the World in January 2007 over a phone hacking scandal at the newspaper. He is now media adviser to UK Prime Minister David Cameron.

Journalists hacked into mobile-phones to hear voice mail messages left for UK royalty, government ministers and celebrities.

An investigation by Scotland Yard focused almost exclusively on the hacking targeting Prince William and Prince Harry. It resulted in the imprisonment of a News of the World reporter and a private investigator.

Further allegations have now been made and there are calls for a judicial inquiry…

Major corporations naturally prefer to keep secret the use of “the dark arts“ to steal confidential information.

Royal Dutch Shell is probably the business worlds leading practitioner in the use of commercial espionage, sometimes on an industrial scale.

I speak from experience as Shell has stolen confidential intellectual property from me on several occasions. It tried to keep the associated court settlements secret after I was forced to repeatedly issue High Court proceedings against the company. (See pdf of magazine feature – High Court papers unveil secret Shell writ losses – spread over several pages, so it takes a little time to load).

After issuing SEVEN separate related court cases against Shell in all, the oil giant decided to use undercover agents to investigate my father and me. One agent was caught at our offices examining private mail. When challenged, he presented fake credentials. In conjunction with our lawyers, we cornered the then Legal Director of Shell, Mr Richard Wiseman, into admitting in writing that the agent in question (“Christopher Phillips”) was working for Shell. A retained lawyer acting for Shell – Colin Joseph of DJ Freeman now known as Kendall Freeman – informed us in writing at the time of the incident that other agents were also investigating us, but declined to reveal what they were doing.

We were in fact besieged by undercover operatives and bombarded by threats. Our house was burgled and Shell discovery papers, including one that Shell had been unable to obtain through court proceedings, was tampered with and no doubt copied. Our key witnesss residence was also burgled. Again, Shell discovery documents were tampered with. Even my solicitors house was burgled. All of the burglaries across Southern England took place within a matter of weeks leading up to a High Court trial in which Shell had brought counter-claims against us, which it later abandoned. Mr. Wiseman denied that Shell had any connection with the above sinister activity, other than in relation to “Christopher Phillips”.

Some of these events were set out at the time in a letter we sent to Colin Joseph. It included reference to threats made “against my son, his family and against his witnesses.” It also mentions a related meeting at Shell-Mex House between Simon Rines, a journalist representing The Guardian newspaper, and Colin Joseph, Richard Wiseman and a person from Shell media department, all representing Shell. Both sides tape recorded the entire interview.

The companies were lured into a rigged contract tender process. They were then enticed into confidentiality agreements, again under false pretenses. The whole exercise was designed to steal information from them, when in reality they had no prospect of winning the contract, which was awarded to a company which did not even participate in the tender. (This was analogous to a horse winning a race in which it did not run.) It was a company with whom the Shell executive masterminding the rigged process had a very close connection and an offshore bank account. Senior Shell executives, including Malcolm Brinded, gave their full backing to the unscrupulous executive responsible for the corrupted tender process.

We do not know whether at the time of Mr. Wiseman’s denial of Shell’s connection with the additional skulduggery, he was aware of Shell’s close connection with Hakluyt, which was engaged on Shell’s behalf in the same type of operations against other parties such as Greenpeace, The Body Shop and Nigerian activists, that had been directed against us.

Shell’s hostile activities targeting us and our website have continued in subsequent years.

A Shell internal confidential email dated 21 March 2007 revealed that Shell had undertaken a global spying operation against its own employees in an effort to find out who has been supplying us with Shell internal laundry (as it is sensitively described).

In June 2007, Shell secretly threatened legal proceedings against our website server hosting companies in Canada and the USA. The threats resulted in our royaldutchshellplc.com website being deactivated on 25 June 2007. Although initially unwilling to disclose who had made the threats that frightened our hosting companies into immediate submission, when we pressed the matter, each hosting company reluctantly confirmed that it was, as we rightly suspected, Shell. Keith Ruddock, a Royal Dutch Shell General Counsel, later confirmed to me in an email dated 26 June 2007, that Shell was responsible for the machinations which briefly shut down our website.

In 2008, the website came under sustained attack, the precise details of which I will not reveal for security reasons. By March of that year, the attacks had become so disruptive that I sent an email to Michiel Brandjes, Company Secretary & General Counsel Corporate, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, officially notifying Shell of what was going on and providing detailed information. I thought it possible that a counter-measures team would be concerned at senior management being brought into the matter. Mr Brandjes knew nothing about the attacks, but as if by magic, by coincidence of otherwise, the attacks ceased.

A confidential Shell internal email dated June 2009 involving (CAS) Shell Corporate Affairs Security and NCFTA, a U.S. cybercrime agency, partly funded and staffed by the FBI, discussed “investigations” relating to us and our website and said: “There will be no attempt to do anything visible to Donovan”. The implication being that the “investigations” would be “invisible”.

We have received a large number of Shell internal emails over several years. Some have been leaked to us by our network of Shell insiders while countless others, spanning several years, have been obtained from Shell after we made applications to the company as provided under the UK Data Protection Act.

I would now reveal for the first time that threats, including death threats, have allegedly been made against conscience driven whistleblowers leaking information and/or Shell internal documents to the author of this article. Royal Dutch Shell also took draconian legal action against the Malaysian whistleblower Dr John Huong, a Shell production geologist. He was buried for several years in Shell defamation lawsuits for information allegedly leaked to this website. Shell also sought his imprisonment for alleged contempt of court.

I have evidence from our sources confirming alleged threats. One such threat for example relates to the Sakhalin2 project. Evidence I provided to the Russian government supplied to me by an insider, cost Shell billions of dollars and also resulted in the resignation of a Shell Managing Director David Greer, who was Project Director of Sakhalin2 and Deputy Chairman of Sakhalin Energy Investment Company Limited. The last message received from the source informed me that they had received a credible serious threat. The source disappeared without trace.

The track record of intimidation should heighten concern about the dark side of Shell.

Two former spooks are currently employed by Shell. A retired senior FBI official, Richard T. Garcia, is Global Security Manager for Shell Americas. A former senior MI6 officer of the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), Ian Forbes McCredie OBE is head of Shell Corporate Affairs Security (CAS).

The above provides overwhelming evidence of Shell’s track record of IP theft, fraud, and industrial espionage. (Speaking of fraud, only a few years ago, Royal Dutch Shell was responsible for one of the biggest securities frauds in corporate history)

In 1993, following five years of research, my findings resulted in the commissioning of a television program for ‘Carlton Television’. Shell quickly responded. Investigators kept me under surveillance. My telephone was tapped. My mail was intercepted, and destroyed and/or kept. At the same time, Shell filed a seemingly endless line of complaints about my own alleged conduct, to the Independent Television Commission (UK regulatory authority), Carlton, and others.

In more recent years, Shell has been accused of being responsible for surveillance operations and violence directed at members of the local population in Ireland protesting against the Shell led Corrib Gas Project.

Consequently, be on your guard if, despite the above information, you risk approaching Royal Dutch Shell with confidential commercially value information. The oil giant is predatory in nature and despite its claimed business principles, has no scruples.It also has an army of several hundred lawyers backed up by unlimited financial resources, ready to destroy without mercy any smaller companies or individual who might object to being trampled on.

ADVANCE NOTICE: Another incredible but true story about alleged Royal Dutch Shell industrial espionage is in the pipeline.

COMMENT FROM A FORMER EMPLOYEE OF SHELL OIL USA

When I worked for Shell USA, over 20 years ago, I discovered that Shell was monitoring the phone conversations of its employees in Houston at some of their E&P office locations.

A police officer friend of mine told me about a phone number you could dial and that number would trigger a test of your phone line. If it was clear of other connections, then your phone would ring back when you dialed the number. However, if there was an open connection on the line, i.e., it was tapped or monitored/recorded in some fashion, then you would get a busy signal because the tap was an open circuit.

I passed this number out to a number of my friends at Shell and they started testing their company phone lines. Guess what. Their phone conversations were being monitored. That discovery flew through the staff like wildfire. Caused a big fuss. Lots of denials on the part of Shell. But from then on every one was very careful about what they said and how they used the phone.

Shell has been spying on its employees for decades. And it got even more sinister.

I had been working for Shell for about four years and one day I got a strange phone call. It was from Shell’s political action committee, SEPAC (Shell Employees Political Action Committee). They were soliciting donations to oppose some sort of legislation Congress was proposing that was ‘not in our best interests’. I declined. I was then informed by this person that they noticed that I had always declined to contribute since becoming an employee. They thought this to be strange given that SEPAC operated in the best interests of ‘the employees’.

I proceeded to inform this person that I was not happy they were keeping these kinds of records given that it was prohibited by Federal law, and that pressuring employees to contribute was also a violation of Federal law. This person hung up immediately without further word. I never got another phone call from those people.

Be warned. Shell management not only monitors their computer systems, and phone lines, but they keep track of your ‘loyalty’ to the ’cause’ through your contributions to their political action committees.

Everything you do and say at Shell is a loyalty test. Everything. Big Brother is always watching and listening. Always.

Everything you do and say at Shell is a loyalty test. Everything. Big Brother is always watching and listening. Always.

Meta

OVER 265 NEWS ARTICLES AND NEARLY 40 BOOKS, ALL CITING THIS WEBSITE: SEE INFORMATION BELOW

Links to a selection from over 265 articles by the FT, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Bloomberg, Forbes, Dow Jones Newswires etc., and almost 40 books containing references to this website, or its founders Alfred and John Donovan. Includes TV documentary features in English and German, newspaper and magazine articles, radio interviews, newsletters etc. Plus a selection of academic papers, Stratfor intelligence reports and UK, U.S. and Australian state/parliamentary publications, all citing this website. All in date order. Click on the link at the foot of this column to see the entire 265 plus news articles, again, all in date order.
Head-cut image appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.

DISCLAIMER

This is not a Shell website, nor is it officially endorsed by or affiliated with Royal Dutch Shell.
We operate on a non-profit basis with no subscription charges, no wages, no bonuses, no company pensions and no private jets. In comparison, Royal Dutch Shell Fat Cat Boss, Ben van Beurden, received a financial package worth $30 million USD in 2014.

SHELL PRELUDE TO DISASTER

The links below are to a series of articles, many triggered by a well-placed whistleblower directly involved in the pioneering Royal Dutch Shell Prelude project. Includes articles by Mr Bill Campbell above, the retired distinguished HSE Group Auditor of Shell International and another retired Shell guru with a track record of spotting potential pitfalls in major Shell projects.

SHELL ROLE IN NIGERIAN OPL 245 BRIBERY SCANDAL

Whatever fig leaves they might be trying to use to hide the truth, Shell and Eni paid over $1bn to a company called Malabu for the OPL 245 licence. Even though the payment was channelled through the Nigerian government, it was clear that Shell knew that the ultimate beneficiary was Dan Etete, the former minister of petroleum. Etete is the owner of Malabu, to whom he awarded the licence when he was Nigerian Minister of Petroleum.

ROYAL DUTCH SHELL EMPLOYEE DATA BREACH

GLOBAL NEWS COVERAGE: FEBRUARY 2010
MORE INFORMATION: Contact details for over 176,000 employees and contractors of Royal Dutch Shell reached John Donovan and some environmental and human rights groups, ostensibly from disaffected Shell staff calling for a “peaceful corporate revolution” at the company. The database, from Shell’s internal directory, contained names and telephone numbers for all the company’s work force worldwide, including some home numbers. It was supplied with a 170­ page covering note, explaining that it was being circulated by “116 concerned employees of Shell dispersed throughout the USA, the UK, and the Netherlands”, to highlight the harm done by the company’s operations in Nigeria. John Donovan brought the leak to the attention of Shell. Tests proved that the data was authentic and he destroyed the database after being informed by Mr. Richard Wiseman, the then Chief Ethics & Compliance Officer of Royal Dutch Shell Plc, that the confidential information if publicly disclosed, could put Shell employees and contractors in real danger.

NAZI NAMED SHIP HIRED BY SHELL

The campaign waged on this website by John Donovan to persuade Edward Heerema to rename the worlds biggest ship, The Pieter Schelte - which he named after his late father, Pieter Schelte Heerema, a former Officer in the German Waffen-SS - has been successful. On Friday 6 February 2015, Allseas announced that it was changing the ships name, and on 9 February announced the new name - Pioneering Spirit.

SHELL BLOG

Keis: Shell fired 5000 workers recently but kept government relations manager of Syria in Dubai without any tasks. Paid her salary and nobody know why!!!
She must have good connections somewhere!!!
Recently,she was promoted the title of government relations manager of Iran. She doesn't know anything about Iran let alone its government. BUT she got the job!!!
An obvious case of breach of so called Shell General Business Principals and nepotism!!!

regular browser: It is amazing that these "difficult choices" are all falling at the door of the lowest paid employees of Shell and yet the vastly inefficient and "fat" middle and upper level management just seems to keep on expanding. With such low activity levels due to the transition away from oil and gas, low oil price and smaller geographic focus of Shell one would have thought that these highly paid meeting organisers would face the chop rather than the people doing actual work. It is sad to say but it seems BvB has truly lost the plot after such a promising start and now tries to dig himself out of his own hubris after so many poor choices prime of which is the overpaying for BG.

Deadly Corrib Gas: Dear John,
I see you have already noted Engineers Ireland (EI) 'gong to selves' for what you rightly call 'the deadly Corrib Gas Project' (Shell to Sea remember the unnecessary death of Lars Wagner RIP, although EI appear to have wilfully forgotten it); it's not surprising you consider it odd but I'm afraid that continues to be how things are done in Ireland - incompetence gets the gong, integrity gets the boot.

All the best, from Maura Harrington, Shell to Sea.

Relieved: I was wondering what happened to the peak oil predictions of RDS and the collection of genius boffins Shell had working the problem. They have all apparently gone by the wayside, been retired, or met with some similar fate. Let's here it for Shell's crystal ball predictions by the best in the industry !!! Not.

Dutchdude: Van Beurden's announcement yesterday did not mention anything on the thousands of staff who are leaving the company this year. A small thanks would have been nice for those folks, of whom many have worked 20 to 30 years for Shell. I would recommend Shell senior leaders to have a close look who are leaving the business. I have to agree with Daniel, I don't see any powerpoint wizards leaving, just the ones with clear technical oil business competence.

Relieved: I have an interesting factoid that your readers might be interested in reading. In 1980 proven US oil reserves were at about 37 billion blls. Today, depending upon who you reference, they are somewhere between 35 billion and 240 billion bbls thanks to the oil shale boom. However, during the time period 1980 - 2016 over 110 billion bbls of oil were produced in the US from various basin, both onshore and offshore. What is my point ? My point is that we are not 'running out of oil' by any stretch of the imagination.

Shell Police Corruption Eire .: A second Irish Police Commissioner next week faces the very real possibility of dismissal because of her inability to control corruption in her force (documented daily here). She has chosen to remain stum on the demands of Shell CEO Terry Nolan to vendor to falsify a freely given statement pertaining to a criminal act in which a senior cop and Nolan played key rolls. Silly Woman?

Daniel: Its best to let go experienced technical staff. After all, its the manager with power point that add all the "value". When oil price recovers Shell is going to be very exposed with a lack of expertise. They will have both slices of bread (Upper Management & Junior Staff) but meat, very very sad.

Gold Grill: Peter Vosser must be wondering what happened to his Transition 2009 plans. Shell now has more SEG category staff (nearly 170) for 13 lines of business. This compares to just over 100 post transition 2009. The ratio of SEG to junior staff has got out of control with these highly paid executives pulling in nearly $150 million per annum surely now is the time to start pruning the top of the tree. I'm surprised Ben has let this top heavy organisation continue. I wonder who were making the decisions about which staff to let go, could it have been the SEG group?

Safety dude: @billcampbell
Sorry Bill but LTIF and TRCF are things of the past. We have moved on from those long time ago. Those were probably correct in your day but times change and we now use more meaningful indicators for both process and personal safety. These include leading indicators as well as lagging indicators. The TRCF and LTIF are still used for comparison purposes with other industry participants but they remain only a small part of performance measurement.

Relieved: When I first went to work for Shell many centuries ago ONE SHELL was the tallest building in Houston and Shell was a respected company. My,my, how things have changed. Shell's retreat to the burbs is very symbolic.

Heartbroken: @Bill Campbell. I applaud your bravery to stand up to the Shell bullies. I can't recall anyone having the principles and courage to stand up to the bullies in that disgustingly rancid place. Where are all the people that stood for something? Now staff are treated like numbers (cattle) with the constant threat of the sack hanging over them. Guantanamo C16 has even announced that it will start charging inmates to use the gym facilities. Our prison comrades in Houston have had their cells taken away from them and condemned to home incarceration. Someone mentioned core values. I fear a ban on using those words is not far away. RDS RIP

SHELL IP PIRACY

Reading between the lines in various legal documents, it seems that the allegations are that after the technology in question had been disclosed to a Shell company in the USA, the information was passed to Shell in the Netherlands in breach of confidentiality. And Royal Dutch Shell subsequently exploited the technology without payment or credit to the company holding the rights; Newton Research Partners. The inference seems to be that Twister B.V. was founded by Shell partly on trade secrets stolen from Bloom/Newton.

WEBSITE INFORMATION

DISCLAIMER: This is not a Shell website nor is it officially endorsed by or affiliated with Royal Dutch Shell Plc. Originally co-founded by the late Alfred Donovan and his son John, it is now operated by John, Shell's "No.1 Enemy", aided by an expert team, with invaluable support from retired Shell senior executives and officials as guest contributors and leaked information from Shell insiders.(JOHN DONOVAN, WEBSITE OWNER)For nearly a decade, we have operated globally under the Royal Dutch Shell Plc top level domain name, dealing on Shell’s reluctant behalf with job applications, business proposals, Shell pension enquiries, shareholder enquiries, complaints, invitations to speak at conferences, an approach from the Dutch Defence Ministry and even terrorist threats. All meant for Shell. Prospect magazine has aptly described this website as being:"An open wound for Shell":WIPO proceedings by Shell to seize the domain name failed.NO SUBSCRIPTION CHARGES: All of our watchdog activities monitoring Royal Dutch Shell, including operating this website, are carried out on a non-profit basis. Any advertising revenues generated are used to recover and/or defray operational costs. We are a news aggregator and original content website. All information is available free for educational and research purposes. SHELL TACIT ENDORSEMENT: WHAT A WELL INFORMED SHELL OFFICIAL SAID ABOUT US:
"John and Alfred Donovan well known in UK/Hague. They perceive Shell played them and so have made it their mission to embarrass,belittle and criticize Shell, which they do quite well. Their website, royaldutchshellplc.com is an excellent source of group news and comment and I recommend it far above what our own group internal comms puts out."
WARNING TO SHELL EMPLOYEES: Shell Global Affairs Security "CAS") is spying on Shell employees globally trying to trace who is visiting, posting, or leaking information to this website from Shell premises. Threats, including death threats, have allegedly been made against conscience driven Shell whistleblowers supplying us with information. The worlds biggest leak of employee details as part of a claimed corporate revolution by 116 Shell employees, suggest the espionage operation, threats and draconian litigation have not been entirely successful in cutting off the supply of information to this website. The insider leaks had already cost Shell billions on the Sakhalin Energy project and the loss of SEIC Deputy Chairman, David Greer.We publish our own carefully researched articles about Shell e.g. "How Royal Dutch Shell saved Hitler and the Nazi Party".MEDIA COVERAGE: Prospect Magazine, The Sunday Times, and The Guardian, have all published major articles about us: "Rise of the Gripe Site";"Two men and a website mount vendetta against Shell' and "92-year-old's website leaves oil giant Shell-shocked”. SHELL PETROL STATION images displayed in the website header panel are licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Information on copyright issues here.
John Donovan can be contacted at [email protected]

SHELL’S $500,000 WEDDING GIFT TO CORRUPT BRUNEI ROYAL FAMILY

EXTRACT FROM ASIAN JOURNAL ARTICLE IN LIST OF LINKS BELOW: "Fireworks will light up the sky for three nights. The local unit of oil giant Royal Dutch Shell has donated 500,000 Brunei dollars (US$292,400; euro 243,700) for the display, and for cultural events to be hosted by popular performers from Malaysia."

BILL CAMPBELL WHISTLEBLOWER EMAIL TO MP’S

IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS:

THIS IS WHAT IT SAID:

Subject: This could be the most important whistleblower email you have ever received.

Some unfortunate Royal Dutch Shell workers have already lost their lives. More lives are at stake.

My name is Bill Campbell. I am a former Group Auditor of Shell International. I am writing to you on a matter of conscience in an effort to avert the inevitability of another major accident in the North Sea. The consequences could potentially impact on families in many constituencies, including your own.

As Royal Dutch Shell and the Health & Safety Executive would acknowledge, I am an expert on safety matters relating to offshore oil and gas platforms. In 1999, I was appointed by Shell to lead a safety audit on the Brent Bravo platform. The audit revealed a platform management culture that basically gave a higher priority to production than the safety of Shell employees. To our astonishment we discovered that a "Touch F*** All" policy was in place. Worse still, safety records were routinely falsified and repairs bodged.

I personally brought the shocking situation to the attention of senior management including Malcolm Brinded, the then Managing Director of Shell Exploration & Production. I revealed that ESDV leak-off tests were purposely falsified, not once but many times and that Brent Bravo platform management had admitted responsibility for the dangerous practices being followed. In response to my team ringing alarm bells, management pledged to rectify the serious problems which had been uncovered.

When I later complained that the pledges were not being kept, I was removed from my oversight function.

Four years later, a massive gas leak occurred on the platform. Two workers lost their lives. I have no doubt at all that the inaction of the relevant Asset Manager, the General Manager, the Oil Director and Malcolm Brinded, contributed in some part to the unlawful killing of two persons on Brent Bravo in September 2003.

Shell subsequently pleaded guilty to breaches of the HSE regulations and a record-breaking £900,000 fine was imposed. I thought this would bring about a real change in policy to put the emphasis on safety.

Unfortunately I was wrong. Although I supplied the evidence related to 1999, and the fact that there had been a collapse in controls of integrity from 1999 to 2003 on all 16 of Shell's North Sea offshore installations covered in a post fatality integrity review to the HSE for review by the Procurator Fiscal, none of this evidence was presented before the Sheriff at the subsequent Inquiry. The situation is explained in a letter to the Procurator Fiscal and the Sheriff (on 24th February 2007).

Shell management has engaged in spin to try to pretend that it is getting to grips with its safety problem. However, its atrocious safety record - the worst in the North Sea in terms of accidental deaths and absolute number of enforcement actions – tells a different story. This fact has resulted in a number of newspaper articles.

I have had meetings with senior Shell people including its CEO Mr. Jeroen van der Veer. I regret to say that I have found him to be economical with the truth. He prefers to support cover-up and deceit rather than confronting the underlying problems. Brinded is now Executive Director of Shell Exploration & Production. He believes in burying evidence.

My family and friends would probably prefer me to give up on this matter and enjoy my retirement after so many years working for Shell.

However, by writing to every MP in the UK, no one can ever say that I did not do my best to avert an inevitable further major accident event in the North Sea. When it happens (I pray that I am wrong) I will make this warning communication available to the media together with the vast amount of evidence in my possession.

At least my conscience is clear. I have done everything possible to ring the alarm bells about Shell management and its unscrupulous attitude to the safety of its employees.

Yours sincerely
Bill Campbell

ENDS

(Malcolm Brinded and Jeroen van der Veer are no longer with Shell. The Oil Director referred to in the email is Chris Finlayson, who left Shell to become Chief Executive of British Gas before being fired - his photo immediately below)

SHELL PERSECUTION OF DR JOHN HUONG

SHELL RESERVES FRAUD

SIR PHILIP WATTS, THE GROUP CHAIRMAN OF ROYAL DUTCH SHELL GROUP, FORCED TO RESIGN IN 2004

Shell’s reputation was destroyed in 2004 after FIVE consecutive cuts to its hydrocarbon reserves covering 55% of its total reserves. US and UK financial regulators imposed $150 million in fines on Shell for securities fraud. Shell was also rocked by class action lawsuits.Sir Philip Watts
and Walter van de Vijver (whose headcut images appear courtesy of The Wall Street Journal) were among the Shell executives forced to resign. More details at the foot of this column.
MORE DETAILS: The Shell reserves scandal brought about
the end of the Royal Dutch Shell Group in its original form as an Anglo-Dutch partnership.
Shell Transport & Trading Co and Royal Dutch Petroleum were unified into a single Dutch owned company - Royal Dutch Shell Plc.
Sir Philip turned to religion and is now a very wealthy priest after receiving a payoff/pension package from Shell reportedly worth $18.5 million. Walter van de Vijver in contrast was the victim of a sadistic sacking by his Shell senior management backstabbing colleagues.

by John Donovan

Displayed below are some of the spectacular promotional campaigns my company Don Marketing created for Shell in the 1980s and 1990s. This was before the series of SIX high court actions we brought against Shell for stealing ideas (4) and for defamation (2) - all settled by Shell. This website is a permanent response by me to the malicious underhand tactics, including treachery, espionage and intimidation, used by Shell during and after the bouts of litigation. More information is printed at the foot of this column.
MORE DETAILS: After a solicitor acting for Shell threatened to make the litigation "drawn out and difficult" with the intention of draining the resources of a financially weaker opponent, my late father (Alfred Donovan) and I decided to mount a wide-ranging campaign as a counter-measure. We jointly founded the Shell Corporate Conscience Pressure Group, which nearly 15% of Shell UK retailers joined. We regularly conducted ethical surveys involving up to 1500 Shell petrol stations. All responses were opened and authenticated by an independent solicitor who supplied Affidavits confirming the results. In whole page announcements in trade magazines (examples above) we challenged Shell to commission and publish the resuits of independent research asking the same questions and offering respondents GUARANTEED anonymity. Shell never took up the invitation. Instead it asked the UK Advertising Standards Authority to investigate our Shell surveys. No problems were found. The head-cut image of Alfred Donovan appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.

SHELL CONTROVERSIES

selection of memorable warnings/articles/images associated with the controversial track record of Royal Dutch Shell.

WARNING: DO NOT DISCLOSE YOUR IDEAS TO SHELL GameChanger OR SHELL Ideas360 WITHOUT TAKING EVERY POSSIBLE PRECAUTION. Shell management has ample funds to pay for intellectual property but prefers to steal it from small businesses and in our experience, gives its full backing to dishonest managers willing to do its bidding. We have sued Shell repeatedly in the High Court for the theft of our Intellectual Property. It is doubtful if anyone can match our dire experience in dealing with this ruthless unscrupulous serial poacher of other parties ideas. Expect threats, legal machinations and sinister action from Shell and its spooks if you object to having your ideas stolen.

Some years ago extensive documentary evidence was brought to the attention of Malcolm Brinded above, when he was Chairman of Shell UK, proving beyond any doubt that Shell executives had conspired to rig a tender for a major contract. A number of innocent firms were deliberately lured into signing confidentiality agreements and disclosing Intellectual Property to Shell under false pretences, in a carefully contrived plot. The firm which was awarded the contract never took part in the tender. One objective of the Machiavellian plan was to stop/delay IP trade secrets owned by the participants in the tender from being disclosed to Shell's rivals. This was achieved by outright deception, without paying a cent to the firms involved, who wrongly believed they were participating in an honest tender. Instead of sacking the ring leader, AJL - who had a personal relationship with the firm which miraculously won the race in which it never ran - Shell senior directors, including Brinded, gave AJL their full backing. Some of the Shell executives involved, including for example, Tim Hannagan, still hold high positions inside Shell - in his case, Global Brand and Visual Identity Manager. If Shell does not accept that this is a true, provable account of what happened, then it should sue for libel. How on earth is such predatory conduct compatible with Shell's claimed business principles?

NAZI HISTORY OF ROYAL DUTCH SHELL

Royal Dutch Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.

MORE INFORMATION
Shell appeased and collaborated with the Nazis. The oil giant instructed its employees in the Netherlands to complete a form giving particulars about their descent, which for some, amounted to a self-declared death warrant. Shell used slave labor and was a close business partner in Germany of I.G. Farben, the notorious Nazi run chemical giant that also used slave labor and supplied the Zyklon-B gas used during the Holocaust to exterminate millions of people, including children. Shell continued the partnership with the Nazis in the years after the retirement of Sir Henri and even after his death. It was money generated on Shell forecourts around the world, profiteering from cartel oil prices, that funded the Nazi party and saved it from financial collapse. Evidence about Shell's Nazi connections can be found in extracts from "A History of Royal Dutch Shell" Volumes 1 and 2 authored by historians paid by Shell, who had unrestricted access to Shell archives. There are 67 pages in total, so takes some time to download.

Photograph (full size here) shows a Swastika flag flying at the head office of Royal Dutch Petroleum, 30 Carel van Bylandtlaan, The Hague, during the Nazi occupation of the in World War II (From Image Database Hague Municipal)

Sir Henri Deterding, the founder of the Royal Dutch Shell Group - known as "The Most Powerful Man in the World" - who became an ardent Nazi and financial supporter of Hitler and the Nazi party.